Neon Genesis Evangelion characters and situations created and Copyright
by Gainax, Project Eva, ADV Films - Used without permission
NGE-Gospel of the Serpent storyline copyright 2003-2004 by Michael Ward
Minimum spoilers ahoy!
You want to know how this happened? Well, first you take a vague but fairly competent grasp of Eva, throw in a Mary-Sue (it's weird, I hate reading fics with OC's in them, but whenever I write fanfiction it always has them! What the heck is wrong with me!?) compound everyone's misery by only having seen death and rebirth and not the actual end of EVA, with most of my knowledge of the movie coming from what I've read in fanfiction. Add in some pre-exam tension and voila!
This by the way, is my disclaimer for the following fic's shortcomings.
Now don't get me wrong, I like this story, really, it's just, I know, and all of you who have ever read any of my other works (all two of you…) will know, is that I haven't finished a long story in my life…
So barring this being a fantastic success garnering massive reviews and praise, it's unlikely I'm going to finish it.
Sorry.
But anyway, like all my author notes, I've rambled on for way too long, so please just enjoy the fic.
NGE – Gospel of the Serpent
By Flash69
I stand alone
Atop the legend of Gilgamesh
There is no sound
Yet my roar echoes from every ear that is unalive
I see the world begin again
But I cannot remember
I cannot live until I know
Where is she
Who my soul belongs to?
Tenshi Yamamoto The Inverse Testament, G3n3sis 8
Chapter 1
The rain was always heaviest in the autumn. It poured down invincible, soaking the city and saturating it with filthy polluted water from heaven.
Besieged by black cloud and stained by rain, the city of Tokyo IV however remained unflinching, resolute and sparkling with a thousand tiny lights. On this wet night most travelled by car, or monorail, but not for one man. On the quiet back streets, there was no one but the darkness and the man, protected from the rain by a black umbrella. He moved continuously and with purpose, walking down the street, until he came to an apartment building, he then took to the stairs and ascended the blocky habitation to the third floor. He then took a door card from his pocket and slid it through the reader in front of the fifty-first door. The door obediently slid open and the man walked into his black apartment. He flapped his umbrella dry, took off his coat and hung it up, with a hiss the door behind him closed.
The man then fell to his knees and wept the loss of the thing that he could no longer remember but still held dearest to all things in his heart.
This man was Tenshi Yamamoto.
The lightning illuminated his room and revealed hundreds of paintings, nailed to the walls, beautiful art he made himself, full of sorrowful images and memories without names. He threw his head back and roared.
The sound echoed across building, and a thousand other tiny voices no less potent joined in chorus and were silent forever.
In an apartment nearby, Rei Ikari woke up more abruptly than she was used to. Usually she woke in a more gentle fashion at seven o' clock sharp. She would then get up, have a shower, get dressed and then go to her place of employment at PIRO (the Post Impact Restoration Organization) in a newly reclaimed Central Dogma. Not at all like now, where she was violently thrust awake by the sound of torment at three in the morning.
"Did I eat something strange perhaps?" she quietly mused.
She decided to go to the bathroom for a drink of water and then back to bed.
In the room next to hers Shinji Ikari was not fully awake, he was rather in the limbo between sleep and wakefulness, a level of consciousness where although he was aware, he was unable to do anything. Until however, he registered a faint light coming from outside. He broke his equilibrium and rose to wakefulness as he slowly shifted to look at his red LCD clock.
"That's odd, why's Rei awake so early?" he mumbled.
"It's probably nothing go back to sleep." Came the muffled reply beside him.
This was recent development, until eight months ago Shinji slept alone. It was eight years after Third Impact, and it had taken him over seven to get as far as this with Asuka.
He'd tried hard, but fate, or his own fears had often overridden him. It took him three years to actually tell her how he really felt. It took another year for her to actually believe him.
"No, I'd better see just in case."
Ruffling of sheets and soft sound of footfalls on carpet and the gentle swish of a well oiled door, followed by the faint slap of bare foot upon lino with an accompanying "Ah! Cold!" (this is Shinji after all).
Shinji poked his head around the bathroom door and saw Rei drinking a glass of water.
"Are you okay Rei?"
"Yes, I am fine."
"It's just that your not usually up at three in the morning."
"I know, a sound from outside woke me up."
"Oh… well… OK, goodnight Rei!"
"Goodnight Shinji."
More slaps of barefoot on lino, a swish of a door closing, more muffled footsteps and more rustling of bedcovers.
"You worry too much about your sister." Commented Asuka, hers eyes still closed, her body unmoving from their warm comfortable position under the covers.
There was a pause as the wheels in Shinji's head turned for a second.
"Why are you awake this early Asuka?"
Silence.
"Are the nightmares back Asuka?" he asked.
More silence.
Shinji moved over towards her and wrapped his arms around her warm frame and hugged her from behind. He discovered her to be trembling slightly, almost imperceptibly. After a few minutes she gradually stopped and let sleep take her. A short while afterwards Shinji did the same.
"Oh Yesod! When you shine with the virtue of independence, what brilliance you are! "
Tenshi Yamamoto, The Inverse Testament S3phiroth 1:8
It was morning.
Tenshi knew this to be the case, as pale light filtered through his single window, under which he had cried himself to sleep in the foetal position.
His amnesia was really beginning to tear him apart. He was Tenshi Yamatato, the Devil of Bali, former UN Commando operative, or was he? He had no memories of it, but was told that it was true, something however, told him this was nowhere near the truth, or was it?
There was a knocking at the door, and Tenshi merely grunted in it's general direction as a reply. The knocking persisted and Tenshi unfolded himself from his uncomfortable position and staggered in his dishevelled state towards the closed portal to the outside world and answered it.
"Tenshi Yamamoto?" the looming black silhouette in his doorframe inquired.
"Yes?"
"You have been reactivated."
"But I still remember nothing."
"Irrelevant"
His papers were roughly shoved to him and he grasped at them. The shadow departed and his door closed behind him. Tenshi fell to the floor.
"I cannot do this, I cannot do this, I cannot…"
He looked over his papers, apparently he was to report to the EDF base in northern Tokyo IV, the St Stephen Base.
"St Stephen, but that's a space centre…?"
He thought back to his earliest memory, for second a wave darkness and helplessness washed over him, of devastation and flame. But in a instant it was replaced by his first real memory of the hospital. He'd woken up in the Tokyo IV National Hospital with absolutely no memory but his name about six months ago. He'd apparently spent the last 7 and a half years in a coma. He knew nothing, his body, seemed to remember sensations he couldn't place, phantom pains of loss he didn't understand, tormenting him. He couldn't remember being trained, but his body remember how it was supposed to move, although he could not remember how to become the Devil of Bali, he knew that at a moments notice, he could become that thing of dark legends. The more he asked, the less willing the army were to tell him what he had done in Bali, the less willing to tell him what he was.
His instinct however told him that this was a minor point, and there were more important things to remember.
He looked at his orders once again.
"I can't go backwards, they won't let me stand still, so I must go forwards…"
There was almost a grin on the side of his face, his body seemed to surge slightly, lifted by the promise of intrigue and possible violence.
"This feeling… it's coming back!"
"In Gaf I wandered to long, and retained only my body and soul…"
Tenshi Yamamoto The Inverse Testament G3n3sis 1:4
Eight years ago, something strange happened. That was all most people really remembered about third impact, there were only three people on this earth who knew exactly what happened, they were Rei, Asuka and of course, Shinji Ikari.
These three were the only people who truly knew what the real changes Shinji made to the world, the minor things that Shinji had done to make it perfect.
The third impact did however damage the earth, not nearly as much as the second impact, but the world was wracked with minor earthquakes for a while, and then at the end of it, the earths axis had shifted back to the place it had occupied before the second impact, bringing the seasons back to Japan.
Certain people had simply disappeared, in some cases whole buildings had ceased to be, with their inhabitants finding themselves on the earth where they used to work.
The more disturbing aspects of third impact involved the resurrection of much of the NERV personnel. Most people would have found being brought back to life a little unsettling, but most of the old NERV crew took it with an every day stoicism.
I mean, when you work with giant robots designed to fight strange extra-terrestrial angels, not to mention all of those weird biblical references, it takes more than a little end of the world miracle to faze you… right?
With the Angels defeated, and third impact been and gone, there was very little reason for NERV to exist anymore. So in the Geofront, instead of an organization with apocryphal goals led by an arch-manipulator, was the Post Impact Restoration Organization, led by a man who couldn't grow a beard if he tried.
Right now that man was sitting in his fathers old chair and looking at the ceiling, wondering for the umpteenth time if he should have held his fathers soul back from the well of souls. Like he had with the SEELE council…
He'd sent an echo back through time, a message to the past, to the Council.
23 seconds before third impact his shadowy image appeared to them and proclaimed:
"This is a message, it cannot interact. I am now imbued with the powers of the third impact, I know everything, and I have found you wanting, for your sins your souls can no longer return to Gaf, you will be wiped away with the old world, never to return. I'm sorry… but we will not meet again."
To this day he had absolutely terrified himself when he did that, terrified at just how much he'd enjoyed thwarting their plans at the last minute and damning them to a fate worse than hell itself.
That was one of the reasons he sealed most of the powers he gained in third impact, the only one he'd kept since then was divine understanding.
He could instantly understand everything with divine accuracy and clarity.
He used to have it on all the time but that had proved a… mistake.
He now only used it for work.
"Commander Ikari, there's a message for you." Shinji shuddered, he hated it when people called him that, it reminded him of his father.
"Thank you Maya." He said as he switched on the intercom.
"Commander, we require your talents in Section R again."
"Fine Nobuichi, I'm on my way now…"
In the crèche two eight year old children played as their mother watched on. On her way to the filing department, Rei walked past her, carrying a heavy load of papers.
"Hello Rei!" came a cheerful cry behind her and the Azure haired girl, and she tried to manoeuvre herself to meet her greeter without dropping the papers.
"Hello Miss Katsuragi, it's good to see you again." She looked over into the crèche, "And little Kintaro and Ritsuko too. Are you on you're lunch break?"
"Yeah. It's good to see you're doing well Rei." Rei graced the woman with one of her rare smiles "It's good to be doing well Miss Katsuragi." She then left the 38 year old women with her children. The last gift of Shinji, to the closest thing he'd ever had to a mother.
As the blue haired girl continued on her way, Misato took another bite from her sandwich and watched her children play.
She knew more about Third Impact than she let on to most, for a start, she knew that she hadn't been pregnant before third impact, it was a medical impossibility. Secondly she had also found Kaji's notes, and they hadn't been easy to find. She knew most of what was supposed to happen during the Third Impact from them.
Even now, the concept of her resurrection still unsettled her, and she just hoped that her children never had to put up with as much crap as she did.
She sighed, "damn, I really wish I had a beer about now…"
Of course what really annoyed her about being resurrected was, if she could come back, why couldn't Kaji?
In crèche Ritsuko was playing with her dolls, and Kintaro was watching television with Adam, he was new, and a little strange. He was very quiet and very strong, Kintaro liked him because he was cool. But he gave her sister the creeps, which was uncool. Some other kids tried to bully him once, he'd lifted one over his head and whispered something in his ear, and the bullies never bothered any of them again. That was cool.
This was strange as it was the reverse for Adam, he found Kintaro creepy for some reason and Ritsuko kind of cool (for a girl). But he didn't talk much, and was happy just to have friends. So Adam continued to watch daytime television, with Kintaro and Ritsuko…
Tenshi showed his papers to the guard on the gate, the guard saluted his superior and waved him through.
When he finished parking his car he was greeted by his superior.
He was leaning against the railings on the sidewalk. His white unchecked shirt flapped in the light breeze with his mop of light brown hair. His blue eyes glinting like sapphires.
"You must be Captain Tenshi Yamamoto."
He took a second to regard this man, for all his politeness, Tenshi got a bad vibe from him, that reminded him of indistinct negative things. This man exuded an aura that reminded him of death, and…rebirth?
"I guess I must be." He replied.
"I am Commander Yaezaki, pleased to meet you."
Every word was delicately placed, like a women arranging flowers, or a doctor his scalpels.
The bad vibes in his gut rose up and out of his mouth came the question
"Have we met before sir?"
Yaezaki unleashed a delicate smirk on the corners of his mouth.
"No Captain, I don't believe we have…"
And Tenshi Yamamoto knew that he was lying.
As the Commander walked away from him, the name came unbidden into his mind
Koworu…
"I did not remember many things, but I remembered him first…"
Tenshi Yamamoto The Inverse Testament, G3n3sis 2:4
End of Part 01
Be honest with me, how many of you saw that coming? Don't forget to review, even if it is just to say that you saw Koworu coming a mile off. If you're going to criticize, at least be constructive about it. Any other thoughts about the piece, did I get everyone in character? Have I portrayed the passage of time well? Is Tenshi too much of a Mary Sue for you? What kind of thing would you like to see next? What do you think is going on with Tenshi? Or Adam for that matter?
Please just review, even if it's just to say you liked it. I thrive on attention (it's really quite pathetic really…)
Adios!
Flash69